G. Coleman Woodbury papers, ca. 1920-1980.
Collection Number: 4931
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
Cornell University Library
DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY
Title:
G. Coleman Woodbury papers, ca. 1920-1980.
Repository:
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
Collection Number:
4931
Abstract:
Correspondence, articles and drafts of articles, biographical material, book reviews,
research proposals, syllabi, speeches, and other papers pertaining to city planning,
public housing, and government policy. Includes material on the National Housing Agency,
the Illinois Housing Authority, the Redevelopment Council of America, the Institute
for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities, the Washington Center for Metropolitan
Studies, and Northwestern University. Correspondents include Clarence Stein and Richard
T. Ely.
Creator:
Woodbury, Coleman, 1903-1994.
Quanitities:
16 cubic feet.
Language:
Collection material in English
Professor Emeritus G. Coleman Woodbury, age 91, passed away on August 27, 1994 after
a long and very distinguished career as a teacher, researcher, and activist in planning,
housing, and urban problems.
Professor Woodbury was a Northwestern University Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar. As a student
of the pioneering land economist Richard Ely, Professor Woodbury became interested
in housing, and in 1931 became Executive Secretary of the Illinois Housing Commission.
The work of that commission led to legislation enabling Illinois cities to establish
housing authorities to build housing for low income persons.
In 1933 he became Associate Director of the National Association of Housing Officials,
and joined a group of distinguished housing reformers who worked to bring about federal
funding for low income housing. Professor Woodbury was one of the three-person team
that drafted the legislation that established the nation's public housing program
(Housing Act of 1937). He was also a member of the first advisory counsel to the Federal
Housing Administration.
Subsequently, he worked with the National Resources Planning Board, and during World
War II served as Assistant Administrator of the National Housing Agency, which facilitated
construction of housing to support the war effort.
From 1948 to 1951 Professor Woodbury directed the Urban Development Study producing
an influential and critical two-volume evaluation of the nation's urban problems and
approaches for dealing with them. This study became a classic in the field of urban
problems and city planning.
After World War II Woodbury came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he
remained, except for three years as Charles D. Norton Professor of Regional Planning
at Harvard. Initially in Political Science, he continued the seminar established by
John M. Gaus. He became chairman of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning
when it was established in 1962. His search for an appropriate role for government
in dealing with housing and other urban problems was the focus of his teaching. His
wide experience and narrative style gave professional students a clear awareness of
the nature of city politics.
In 1966 President Johnson appointed Woodbury to the National Committee on Urban Problems,
chaired by Senator Paul Douglas. It studied reforms in low-income housing programs,
zoning and other land-use controls in building and housing codes, and taxes affecting
housing. Its 1968 report, Building the American City, made a number of bold recommendations for dealing with problems of poverty and race
in metropolitan areas. Woodbury was called by Lloyd Rodwin of MIT "one of the ablest
and most respected of this country's housing and planning experts." He was an unusually
effective, applied academic in the Progressive tradition of the Midwest.
--Excerpted from: "On the Death of Emeritus Professor G. Coleman Woodbury: Memorial
Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison." (University of
Wisconsin-Madison Faculty Document 1108, 6 February 1995)
Correspondence, articles and drafts of articles, biographical material, book reviews,
research proposals, syllabi, speeches, and other papers pertaining to city planning,
public housing, and government policy. Includes material on the National Housing Agency,
the Illinois Housing Authority, the Redevelopment Council of America, the Institute
for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities, the Washington Center for Metropolitan
Studies, and Northwestern University. Correspondents include Clarence Stein and Richard
T. Ely.
Forms part of: Lambda Alpha Literary Archives.
INFORMATION FOR USERS
G. Coleman Woodbury Papers, #4931. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell
University Library.
Names:
Stein, Clarence S.
Ely, Richard T. (Richard Theodore), 1854-1943.
United States. National Housing Agency
Illinois Housing Development Authority
Redevelopment Council of America
Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities
Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies
Northwestern University
Lambda Alpha International
Subjects:
Public housing -- Law and legislation -- United States.
Housing policy -- United States.
Housing -- Law and legislation.
Public housing.
Housing.
City planning.
CONTAINER LIST
|
Container
|
Description
|
Date
|
|
| Box 1 |
Biographical material
|
||
| Box 1 |
Pre-professional material
|
||
| Box 1 |
Class papers
|
||
| Box 1 |
IRS statements
|
||
| Box 2 |
Articles and speeches,
|
1940's | |
| Box 2 |
USNHA plans
|
||
| Box 2 |
USNHA records
|
||
| Box 2 |
Correspondence with Arthur Bohnen
|
||
| Box 2 |
Mail on evolution of housing policy,
|
1941 | |
| Box 2 |
Papers re: Urban Redevelopment: Problems and Practices
|
||
| Box 3 |
Illinois Housing Authority,
|
1930's | |
| Box 3 |
Chicago Housing Authority (Commission),
|
1938 | |
| Box 4 |
Correspondence and articles, mostly personal,
|
1925-1928 | |
| Box 5 |
Correspondence, articles and book reviews,
|
1950's, 1960's | |
| Box 5 |
Model Planning Law for National Municipal League,
|
1954 | |
| Box 5 |
Housing and Home Finance Agency,
|
1954 | |
| Box 5 |
Appointment books,
|
1947-1950, 1955 | |
| Box 5 |
Personal correspondence
|
1945-1950 | |
| Box 5 |
St. Lawrence Seaway Project material
|
||
| Box 6 |
Appointment books,
|
1951-1953 | |
| Box 6 |
Articles and speeches,
|
1940's, 1950's | |
| Box 6 |
National Housing Agency,
|
1943-1946 | |
| Box 7 |
National Housing Agency,
|
1943-1946 | |
| Box 8 |
Coleman Woodbury and Richard T. Ely
|
||
| Box 8 |
Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities,
|
1927- | |
| Box 8 |
Ely/Woodbury lectures on housing at Northwestern University
|
||
| Box 8 |
Lambda Alpha folder,
|
1931 | |
| Box 8 |
Research proposals received by CW
|
||
| Box 9 |
Housing,
|
1948 | |
| Box 9 |
Veterans' housing
|
||
| Box 9 |
Housing Act of
|
1949 | |
| Box 9 |
Lectures and family values,
|
1948 | |
| Box 9 |
Harvard syllabus,
|
1951-1953 | |
| Box 9 |
Other committees of the early
|
1950's | |
| Box 10 |
Redevelopment Council of America, Clarence Stein, et al.,
|
1949-1950 | |
| Box 10 |
Baltimore Redevelopment, Oliver Winston,
|
1956 | |
| Box 10 |
National Municipal League,
|
1954 | |
| Box 10 |
Personal correspondence
|
1950's, 1960's | |
| Box 10 |
Appointment books,
|
1961-1970 | |
| Box 11 |
Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies,
|
1961- | |
| Box 12 |
Information on city planning departments, especially at Berkeley and Yale in the
|
1960's | |
| Box 12 |
Rhodes Scholarship Committee, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and AAAS
|
||
| Box 13 |
Personal correspondence including CW's letters to his mother
|
||
| Box 14 |
Personal correspondence, from Northwestern and Oxford
|
||
| Box 15 |
Correspondence and reports on various subjects
|
||
| Box 15 |
Appointment books,
|
1957-1961 | |
| Box 16 |
Speeches
|
||